Mexican students to learn English at UB

By MARCENE ROBINSON

“Having students from Asia and Mexico come together to study English in Buffalo gives us an opportunity to diversify our program.”

Kathleen Curtis, associate director

English Language Institute

UB’s English Language Institute (ELI) will welcome 13
students from universities in the Mexican state of Puebla this
summer to take part in its six-week, Summer II Intensive English
Program.

The students will arrive in Buffalo on June 29, joining the
program’s 75 other international students, mostly from Asia.
They will spend 25 hours per week on the North Campus taking three
intensive English courses: reading and listening, grammar and
speaking, and writing.

“It means a lot to us that SUNY was approached by the
State of Puebla to participate in this program,” says
Kathleen Curtis, associate director of ELI, a program that has
taught English as a second language to international students,
scholars and professionals since 1971. “Having students from
Asia and Mexico come together to study English in Buffalo gives us
an opportunity to diversify our program.”

The Mexican students are studying at UB under a new SUNY-Puebla
Intensive English Program (IEP), created through a partnership
among SUNY, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico and the State of Puebla. The
program aims to deepen the university’s engagement with
Puebla and to bring enhanced global opportunities to Puebla
students.

The SUNY-Puebla partnership will bring 28 English professors and
25 students from 26 of Puebla’s public technical universities
to participate in simultaneous summer English instruction programs
offered at the University at Albany, SUNY New Paltz and Stony Brook
University, as well as UB.

This new partnership is one of the first efforts in Mexico to
take place under President Obama’s “100,000 Strong in
the America” education initiative, which is designed to
increase the number of cultural and educational exchanges from the
U.S. to Latin America and the Caribbean, and vice versa.

This marks the first time many of the students are leaving
Mexico, and for some, their first journey outside of Puebla. To
make the most of their experience in Buffalo, the Mexican students
will dorm in Clement Hall on the South Campus, a prime spot to ride
the NFTA metro rail and explore the city. ELI also will lead
weekend outings to the Walden Galleria, Albright-Knox Art Gallery,
Taste of Buffalo and Niagara Falls.

Participants in the Intensive English Program do not receive
credit, but the skills they gain are invaluable for their
careers.

The Mexican students pose on the South Campus after their arrival at UB.

The best experience of my life! I'm
missing the moments that I lived in Buffalo. I hope to come back soon because UB is a good place to learn and improve.

Jaime Saul Romero

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